How to make objects in a picture fade in?

September 14, 2013 9:10 AM

I am making photo collages in Photoshop, then pasting them onto a timeline in Windows Movie Maker as the visual accompaniment to a song. Is there any way to make certain objects in the photo fade in?

For example, there is a room with a sofa, and I have pasted a woman sitting on that sofa. Is there a way to make just the woman fade in gradually as the song progresses?

Is there a program that would be better than WMM to do this? I have Sony Vegas but I've never been able to use it very well, supposedly (according to Creative Cow forum) because my laptop isn't powerful enough or something. (not enough RAM)

But I'm not sure.

If I could do this in WMM that would be great.

It's also not necessary for me to paste the woman onto the sofa in Photoshop. I could have two photos printed, and cut out the woman from one of them and literally paste her (like, with paste) onto the photo of the room, if somehow that would make it easier to do the fade.

Thank you.

posted by DMelanogaster to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Best answer: If you have two versions of the same photo - one with the woman and one without - then yes, this is super easy to do in WMM. Just put them in one after the other and then go into Timeline view and drag them on top of each other until the fade looks right.
posted by the latin mouse at 9:33 AM on September 14, 2013

Response by poster: can you clarify a bit? just put them directly on top of each other they will automatically fade into each other? or one should be a little to the right? otherwise how does the Timeline interpret it? thank you SO MUCH.
posted by DMelanogaster at 9:51 AM on September 14, 2013

Not directly on top of each other. Depending on the settings this would just show a mix of the two images. The sofa and background would be at 100% opacity and the woman would be at 50% opacity (because she's only in one of the images). You want the two shots to overlap. The amount of overlap determines the length of the dissolve. Since the two images are the same except for the woman the resulting effect is the woman fading in over the length of the dissolve. The two shots together (from the start of the first to the end of the last) should total the length that you want that particular scene to be there and the "gradual fade in" is determined by the amount of overlap.
posted by DaddyNewt at 10:38 AM on September 14, 2013

Response by poster: Thank you so much!
posted by DMelanogaster at 12:22 PM on September 14, 2013